As with other exercise equipment, exercise bicycles are continually evolving. Early exercise bicycles were primarily designed for daily in-home use and adapted to provide the user with a riding experience similar to riding a bicycle in a seated position. In many examples, early exercise bicycles include a pair of pedals to drive a single front wheel. To provide resistance, early exercise bicycles and some modern exercise bicycles were equipped with a friction brakes. The friction brake typically took the form of a brake pad assembly operably connected with a bicycle type front wheel so that a rider could increase or decrease the pedaling resistance by tightening or loosening the brake pad engagement with the front wheel. However, engagement of the brakes pads with the wheel wears down the pads resulting in an undesirable change of the resistance characteristics of the exercise bike over time.
Another evolution of the exercise bicycle is the replacement or substitution of the standard bicycle front wheel with a heavy flywheel and a direct drive transmission. The addition of the flywheel and direct drive transmission provides the rider with a riding experience more similar to riding a bicycle because a spinning flywheel has inertia similar to the inertia of a rolling bicycle and rider and enhances cardiovascular fitness by requiring the user to continue pedaling since there is no freewheeling. These types of exercise bikes are often known as indoor cycling bikes. Traditionally, these types of exercise bikes have provided to the user minimal to no information regarding pedal cadence, power, heart rate and so on. This type of information, however, can be useful to a user since these bikes are often used in group riding programs at health clubs or for other training where the programs and training focus on transitions between various different types of riding, such as riding at high revolutions per minute (RPM), low RPM, changing the resistance of the flywheel, standing up to pedal, leaning forward, riding within targeted heart rate or power ranges, and so on.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved exercise bike.